'Work to do to tackle HIV stigma' - charity boss

There is still work to do to tackle the stigma around HIV and AIDS, the head of a Berkshire charity has said.

Sarah Macadam is CEO of Thames Valley Positive Support (TVPS), a group supporting people in Berkshire diagnosed with the disease.

She joined the charity 20 years ago - at a time where her friends were worried she could catch HIV from being in the same room with people with the disease.

With the charity now preparing to celebrate its 40th anniversary, Ms Macadam said she wanted to celebrate how far society had come as well as recognise what still needs to be done.

She said, from a scientific point of view, progress had been "phenomenal".

"When I joined the organisation... people who were diagnosed very late didn't have as good a chance of living with HIV for a long period of time," she said.

"That's now all changed and we've got the first generation of people living into old age with HIV... we're working with older people services and we've never had to work with them before so this is an exciting time."

But she said that, while medication had moved on, attitudes towards HIV were "very much stuck in the 80s".

"We don't talk about HIV enough," she said.

"We don't normalise it."

Allen, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2015, is one person who has been supported by TVPS.

"I leant more about it through having it which is why I can understand some of the ignorance, because I was ignorant myself," he said.

He said going to the charity and meeting other people had been transformative for him and taught him "there's nothing to be scared of".

"They're all cheerful, happy people just enjoying their lives," he said.

Allen is planning on creating a mural to commemorate the charity's 40th anniversary.

The charity is also looking to speak to people in Berkshire who have been affected by HIV over the decades.

"We want to create an archive of HIV history in Berkshire," said Ms Macadam.

"I hope to a certain extent it'll be quite an uplifting project, because obviously we want to remember the early days but I think it's also really important to recognise where we are now and what an amazing future we've got ahead of us."

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